Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkein's the Lord of the Rings - Softcover

Kenney, Douglas; Beard, Henry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451452615 ISBN 13: 9780451452610

Publisher: Penguin, 1993

Synopsis

A quest, a war, a ring that would be grounds for calling any wedding off, a king without a kingdom, and a little, furry "hero" named Frito, ready - or maybe just forced by the wizard of Goodgulf - to undertake the one mission which can save Lower Middle Earth from enslavement by the evil Sorhed...Luscious Elfmaidens, a roller-skating dragon, ugly plants that can soul-kiss the unwary to death - these are just some of the ingredients in the wildest, wackiest, most irreverent excursion into fantasy realms that anyone has ever dared to undertake.

About this title

Review

First published in 1969, Bored of the Rings quickly became a cult book for its relentless, slapstick pastiche of The Lord of the Rings. Gollancz's 2001 edition marks the first appearance in Britain and in hardback.

Authors Beard and Kenny carry irreverence cheerfully beyond the borders of good taste. For some, it's a hilarious antidote to uncritical worship of Tolkien. For others, it's outright blasphemy. You choose...

Here's the formula. Take the rough plot of The Lord of the Rings. Give everyone daft names: Bilbo Baggins becomes Dildo Bugger, Sauron is Sorhed, and the hobbits Merry, Pippin and Sam are now the boggies Moxie, Pepsi and Spam. Make them all cowardly, dumb, self-serving and/or insane. Cram Middle Earth with droll American brand names, some now rather dated...

Bored of the Rings lurches drunkenly through Tolkien's narrative, scrawling graffiti on noble citadels and firing off gags with such machine-gun speed that something hits the funny bone on almost every page. A warning: "The halberd has fallen! The fewmets have hit the windmill!" A doom-laden prophecy: "Five-eleven's your height, one-ninety your weight, you cash in your chips around page eighty-eight."

Some pokes at the original are quite shrewd. The tiresomely lyrical Tom Bombadil mutates with hideous plausibility into dope freak Tim Benzedrine: "Toke-a-lid! Smoke-a-lid! Pop the mescalino!" Tortuous arguments about the disposal of the Ring are neatly condensed to: "'Alas,' explained Goodgulf." (Guess who?)

Cheap laughs abound despite occasional misfires. Even the map is chuckleworthy. But as the US paperback jacket warned, those who revere Tolkien "will not touch this gobbler with a ten-foot battle-lance". --David Langford

Book Description

The ultimate Tolkien Parody. 300,000 copies sold in since 2001!

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0451452615
• ISBN 13: 9780451452610
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176